Rants and raves about the mess of higher education in the United States.

Monday, August 13, 2018

Pro Hetero-Marriage Professor Wins Supreme Court Case

By Professor Doom

Some time ago, a
professor made a blog post, chastising a teacher for shutting down a student
who advocated for, well, traditional marriage. Arguing for heterosexual
marriage is a faux pas on campus today, and the school formed a committee to
investigate this “inappropriate” behavior.

Four days
of hearings! Months of
deliberations! A hundred and
twenty three page report…over some blog posts. You better believe
the committee was being browbeaten, and kudos to them for holding on to their
integrity.

--Well, holding onto their integrity for a
few months, anyway.

Now, I do feel the
professor made a big mistake here, in that he named the teacher of the course.
Our current world is flat out nuts, and while shutting down discussion of the
value of traditional marriage is politically correct these days…it’s possible
that will change. Because we now live in a world where a “mistake” made years
before can destroy you, naming that teacher can negatively impact her career
years from now.Put yourself in the
teacher’s shoes here: if she allowed open discussion of possible benefits to
traditional marriage, she could have
been hauled into the Diversity Palace for re-education. It’s a no
win situation on campus for this stuff.

He should
apologize for that, at least. That’s my opinion, and it didn’t take over a
hundred pages of explanation, multiple hearings, and months of consideration.

Anyway, based on
the committee’s “fair and balanced” ruling (and I assure the reader, taking
that level of effort is a huge flag that the committee was, eventually,
corrupted), they suspended the professor, and tried to force a full apology
from him for advocating for traditional marriage.

He won’t do
it. He maintains that he shouldn’t be punished for following
the mission of his Jesuit school. Thing is, like most schools, it’s been taken
over by a wandering band of plunderers who care nothing for the school’s
mission:

“As for
so-called Catholic universities, first you have to understand that Jesuits are
thin on the ground these days,” McAdams continued. “The president of
Marquette’s not a Jesuit, the provost isn’t, the dean of arts and sciences
isn’t… there are so few Jesuits that so-called Jesuit institutions pretty much
aren’t run by Jesuits.”

As always, the school
believes they were perfectly correct in punishment. The professor could appeal
the school’s ruling…but this would lead to the school forming another loaded
committee and browbeating that committee as well.

Instead of wasting
time in a thoroughly corrupt system, the professor took his case to the
Wisconsin supreme court, claiming, quite reasonably, that his contract does
allow him freedom of expression without such punishments as “permanent unpaid
suspension”—he’s tenured, so he can’t, technically be fired, but such
distinctions are meager next to being not being paid or allowed to do any work.

They ruled the
university will need to give the professor over 3 years of back pay. I feel the
need to mention these sorts of abuses go on by schools on a fairly regular
basis…most professors just suck it up, because they can’t afford to go that
many years without a paycheck. I also point out that this is all tenure means:
they can’t fire him, but they don’t need to pay him, either.

"The undisputed
facts show that the University breached its contract with Dr. McAdams when it
suspended him for engaging in activity protected by the contract's guarantee of
academic freedom," said the majority opinion written by Justice
Daniel Kelly.

The article I’ve linked actually
spends most of its time covering how the professor is wrong in his beliefs
(it’s fascinating how much slant is here), but I include the “money shot”
above.

The school,
amazingly enough, is unrepentant despite the court ruling against them:

"At
Marquette University, we are proud that we have taken a stand for our students,
our values and our Catholic, Jesuit mission," it said.

"Marquette
will comply with the terms of this decision, and it does not change the
university’s commitment to the safety and well-being of our students."

The
statement concluded:

"This
case has always been about Associate Professor John McAdams’ conduct toward a
student teacher. The professor used his personal blog to mock a student
teacher, intentionally exposing her name and contact information to a hostile
audience that sent her vile and threatening messages."

I’d warn
the professor that his days are clearly numbered, but he’s 72, so I suppose
he’ll be satisfied with winning on principles here. Still, this will be something
of a pyrrhic victory for free speech:

The
university says it ultimately wants to ensure "those whom it invests
with the responsibility and privilege of teaching its
students abide by its governing principles."

The gentle
reader should understand the above to mean that future contracts will give the
university broad leeway to punish faculty who deviate from the narrative, in
this case, dare to advance the notion that heterosexual marriage might not be a
bad thing.

As an aside, I think
two competent people, regardless of gender, should be allowed to enter into
whatever voluntary contracts they wish. I also think religions should be
allowed to ask whatever they want of their voluntary competent followers. It
didn’t take 4 months for me to come to those conclusions, either.

So, let’s
summarize here everything that happened, and the fallout:

First, a
professor makes some blog posts advocating for a belief system consistent with
his institution, and makes the mistake of naming one person who shut down
classroom discussion of an aspect of those beliefs.

Second, the
university uses their corrupt system to punish the professor, beyond all
interpretation of reasonable justice.

Third, the
professor takes his case to a less corrupt system, and overturns the ruling
based on written contract law. This is touted as a win for freedom of speech,
and academic freedom.

Fourth, the
university changes future contracts so they can disallow future free speech and
shut down future academic freedom. There’s nothing anyone can do to stop this.

Finally, the
university will spend a fortune on a new fiefdom, filled with Vice Presidents
of Shutting Down Freedom, which in turn will come up with ways to fix the old
contracts so they can retroactively shut down academic freedom as well. There’s
nothing anyone can do to stop this, either.

So, yes, enjoy
your minor victory professor, you’ve earned it. I maintain the system is too
corrupted at this point to allow for anything better, and that things will only
become worse on this campus, just as they are on many others.